Yesterday Lovebug told me a joke. He and Ironflower tell a lot of jokes, most of which are humorous to them only. But I laugh anyway. I think it's in the job description. Anyway, Lovebug told me this gem: "Mary had a little lamb." I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to continue with the nursery rhyme or some version thereof. He continued, "It's dead".
Now, my first thought was that it was mildly funny. Then I thought, why is my three year old making jokes about dead animals? I quickly blamed his too frequent viewings of Family Guy, which he loves to watch with Hot Guy. I asked about that and I was shot down. Apparently Lovebug learned the joke from the children's magician he saw at the library. Hot Guy told me that he also made jokes about his little volunteers kissing each other.
And he's not the only one. I've seen children's singers doing the same kinds of jokes. And don't get me started on the clowns, one of whom talked about dirty balloon animals, much to Ironflower's chagrin. "But how will he get them dirty, Mommy? Are we going outside?"
I'm one of the last people (polyamorous pagans would undoubtedly be behind me, for example) anyone would describe as conservative, but I'm starting to have some conservative thoughts. Even though I let my children watch Family Guy, I don't like it when children's entertainers get all wink, wink, nudge, nudge, let's make the adults laugh.
Call me crazy, but I think there's something creepy about a man in a weird outfit making kissing jokes while surrounded by small children. Or dead animal jokes. Or saying anything that I think is funny, because I have a sick sense of humor and children's entertainment should not.
Don't they realize that by virtue of their "children's entertainer" job description that it's not about the adults? If it was, all the children would be with a babysitter and Chris Rock would be performing. And kids don't need dead animal jokes or kissing jokes, they can laugh hysterically by just saying the word "strawberry" to each other a few times. Totally different kind of audience.
How do you feel about children's entertainers?
3 comments:
they scare me more than a rabid christian fundamentalist.
I tend to find a lot of children's entertainers kind of creepy anyway. There are some who clearly love and "get" children - we have at least two in our area, but there are others who I think do this because they couldn't get a gig doing stand-up or whatever, and they kind of take it out on the kids.
I tend to find a lot of children's entertainers kind of creepy anyway. There are some who clearly love and "get" children - we have at least two in our area, but there are others who I think do this because they couldn't get a gig doing stand-up or whatever, and they kind of take it out on the kids.
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